The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

achieving air superiority. On 4 October, after all the blistering air battles of
September, Fighter Command had, for the first time, more than 700 fighters
ready to take to the skies. The Germans could keep coming over all they
liked, but they were not going to win. Neither Göring nor Hitler had any
idea of the true strength of Fighter Command, but they now began to accept
that the great battle against Britain had failed – for 1940, at any rate. On 12
October, Hitler finally postponed SEALION until the following spring.
Naval personnel and shipping were to be released, tugs and barges returned
to their normal, much-needed roles, although many of the divisions
allocated for the invasion were to remain along the coastal areas. All that
effort, all that cost; it had come to nothing. Air operations over Britain
would continue, especially the night bombing, but Hitler was now ever
more set upon his next course of action. If Britain could not be brought to
heel now, then she would once the Soviet Union had been absorbed into the
Third Reich.
Yet at this moment of great triumph for the RAF, and especially Fighter
Command, the release from the stranglehold prompted not celebration but
acrimony, jealousy and the worst kind of ugly political jostling. In some
ways, Air Chief Marshal Dowding had been on borrowed time. His original
three-year tenure at Fighter Command had been up in June 1939, but had
then been extended until the following April. By then, with the war about to
boil over, Newall asked him to stay on a bit longer, until July. But by July
there had been no question of retiring Dowding. He was asked to remain
until the end of October, which he accepted. Yet when Churchill heard that
Newall was even considering removing the C-in-C Fighter Command, he
angrily wrote that Dowding should remain in office as long as the war
lasted and could even be promoted to take over as Chief of Air Staff.
Despite this rebuke, however, a month later Sinclair and Newall still
had not confirmed Dowding’s future. When he discovered this, Churchill
was incensed. ‘It is entirely wrong to keep an officer in the position of
Commander-in-Chief, conducting hazardous operations from day to day,
when he is dangling at the end of an expiring appointment,’ Churchill wrote
angrily to Sinclair. ‘Such a situation is not fair to anyone, least of all to the
nation.’ At this, both Newall and Sinclair bowed to their Prime Minister’s
wishes and told Dowding he was now to remain in office for the foreseeable
future.